The British Legion and Y&R launch new Rethink Remembrance Ad

Following on from their earlier ad reciting the In Flander’s Field poem, The British Legion have teamed up with agency Y&R to create another ad urging the public to rethink remembrance. Also set against a narration of ‘In Flanders Fields’, the ad shows CG poppy seedlings slowly sprout from the ground in everyday settings. The seeds grow gradually, and are used to highlight the diversity of the people the Legion support .

The Charity say of the appeal: “The Royal British Legion is asking the nation to Rethink Remembrance by recognising the sacrifices made by the Armed Forces community, past and present.

By wearing a poppy, you aren’t just remembering the fallen: you’re supporting a new generation of veterans and Service personnel that need our support.”

Every intricate detail of each carefully CGI constructed flower was crafted by post production facility Gramercy Park Studios. The facility animated the entire range of growth of the plants, from bud to fully bloomed poppy. Gramercy Park Studios executed its award-winning expertise in colour grading, 3D and 2D, VFX and Sound Design for the mammoth project.

On creating the spectacularly lifelike CGI animations in real settings, Matt Lowery, Head of 3D at GPS, says “Using 360 HDR images of each location and references of poppies, we modelled a myriad of variations and resolutions and added the material details to bring them to life. Using a combination of hand animation and cloth simulation, we managed to create a bloom sequence that stands up to very close inspection.”

He continues “To make the poppies look like they were there on the day, we tracked the movement of a live action camera to recreate a 3D set. We could then cast shadows on the flowers, as if they were under the chairs, or in the shadows of the real-life set.”

To bring the sound of the plants to life, Head of Sound at GPS, Toby Griffin, committed to a number of Foley experiments. Explaining the process, he comments: “To create the sound of the poppies growing through floors, I used roof tiles and scraped them together in various angles. I added layers of wood creaking and debris falling to give the impression of a force below the tiles pushing them through the floor. To create a variation of sounds to experiment with, I brushed my hand across flower heads, picked the leaves off and snapped the stems, while the sound of the bud opening was created by edamame peas being popped.”

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